Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney doesn’t seem to understand the myriad considerations that went into President Obama’s decision to carry out the special operations raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. An ad put out by the Obama re-election campaign highlighting the president’s decision to strike into Pakistani territory to kill Bin Laden sparked a furor by questioning whether Romney would have made the same call.

Since the ad appeared, Romney, his surrogates, and so-called independent groups like the nouvelle swift-boaters have all rehashed the same dubious line in Romney’s defense: That any American president (or “any thinking American“) would have ordered the bin Laden raid. Just last night on Sean Hannity’s Fox News Channel show, Romney yet again issued this defense:

ROMNEY: But if the president wants to remind people of his decision, well, that’s entirely appropriate. But I think it was a big mistake for the president to try to make in this a political event by suggesting that I would not have done the same thing. I mean, frankly, Sean, almost any American in the position of presidency hearing that Osama bin Laden could have been taken out would have certainly pressed the button and said: get rid of the guy.

HANNITY: Oh, absolutely.

ROMNEY: And of course I would have.

Watch the video:

However, Romney and his allies’ repeated responses to the ad that “any thinking American” would have ordered the raid don’t account for the actual events surrounding Obama’s call.

Romney assumes that Obama was 100 percent sure bin Laden was at the compound in Pakistan. However, the intelligence was far from certain:

“There wasn’t any direct evidence that he was there. It was all circumstantial.” — Robert Gates

“The circumstantial case of Iraq having WMD (weapons of mass destruction) was actually stronger than the circumstantial case that bin Laden is living in the Abbottabad compound.” — CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell

“Ultimately, it was a 50/50 proposition as to whether this was actually bin Laden.” — President Obama

Romney thinks that anyone would have ordered the raid based on his assumption that bin Laden’s whereabouts were known. In fact, Vice President Biden and Robert Gates opposed a special operations assault that the president ultimately decided on, particularly because of uncertainty as to whether bin Laden was at the compound.

Romney claimed that “we haven’t heard all the different military options there were” for the bin Laden raid. But various reports have outlined a number of courses of action Obama could have taken. “Most were variations of either a JSOC raid or an airstrike. Some versions included cooperating with the Pakistani military; some did not,” the New Yorker reported.

In an analogous choice in 2005, George W. Bush and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld decided not to strike at senior Al Qaeda commanders in Pakistan because of the potential risk to relations with the notoriously sensitive country. When Obama said in his first presidential campaign that he would strike in Pakistan to get bin Laden, McCain criticized him as irresponsible. Romney echoed this concern when he said in August 2007, “I do not concur in the words of Barack Obama in a plan to enter an ally of ours.”

After arriving in Afghanistan’s capitol Kabul to sign a strategic partnership agreement with President Hamid Karzai, President Obama took to the American airwaves to explain the agreement and his broader Afghanistan strategy to the U.S. A few critics on the right — prone to faulting Obama for his every move — sought to bash the president. “Clearly this trip is campaign-related,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), admonishing Obama for a supposed “attempt to shore up his national security credentials” in the 2012 campaign.

But Inhofe’s blatantly political shot is being undermined by members of his own party and their ideological allies, who have either praised Obama or stuck to criticizing the strategy. Asked by CNN’s Dana Bash before the speech if he viewed the trip as “spiking the football” for the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who has been a critic of Obama’s Afghanistan strategy, said, “No, I don’t view it as that.” He also lauded the trip and the strategic agreement:

MCCAIN: I think it’s a good thing. I think it’s always good when the president goes to where young men and women are in harm’s way.

And I think that many of us who have been involved in Afghanistan are very supportive of the strategic partnership agreement, which I’m sure he’ll be talking about, and we think the agreement is good. We obviously would like to know the details.

BASH: …Do you think that this trip is also part of his political campaign?

MCCAIN: No, I can’t accuse the president of that.

Appearing separately on CNN with Wolf Blitzer, Homeland Security Committee chair Rep. Peter King (R-NY) also supported the trip, though he reserved judgement on the agreement until he could view it in detail. King said, “(H)is visit to Afghanistan is perfectly right. I applaud him for doing it.” The Congressman went on:

KING: Well, as president and commander-in-chief, I applaud him being in Afghanistan. I think it’s important for the troops to see the president and certainly after all of these years of fighting where the troops have done such heroic work and did such an outstanding job. I think it’s important for the president to be there and signing the agreement with President Karzai.

…I think it is always very good when the president of the United States can visit a war zone, especially on such a key moment as this.

Watch clips of the interviews with McCain and King:

McCain and King aren’t the only Republicans praising Obama’s trip. Romney foreign policy adviser Max Boot wrote that “substance of the speech” was “somber and serious and largely free of election-year politicking.” Romney himself released a statement that said: “I am pleased that President Obama has returned to Afghanistan. Our troops and the American people deserve to hear from our President about what is at stake in this war.”

By Colin Cookman

In remarks from Afghanistan’s Bagram Airbase last night, President Obama outlined in broad strokes the terms of a U.S.-Afghan strategic partnership agreement, which he signed earlier that day with his counterpart President Hamid Karzai. Reiterating that the United States’ goal “is not to build a country in America’s image or to eradicate every vestige of the Taliban,” but rather to “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda,” Obama coupled his messages of “enduring partnership” to Afghanistan with an equal commitment to the continued transfer of security responsibility to Afghan forces and the associated withdrawal of U.S. combat forces at a “steady pace.”

This transition is necessary to better align our investments with the broader demands of U.S. military and financial interests both globally and domestically. While conservative critics of the drawdown often express worry about the risks of such a reduction, it will be critical to force Afghan political leaders to take greater responsibility for the fate of their country, a theme stressed by both Obama in his remarks and the strategic partnership language. Indeed, the risks of enabling Afghan dependency indefinitely have the potential to be far costlier for both the U.S. and the Afghans.

The partnership agreement, and Obama’s personal visit, is in part intended to underscore U.S. ongoing support for the Afghan government — albeit in a less direct form, under a more “normalized” bilateral relationship — and to shore up its position in contests with internal and regional rivals. Avoiding Afghan state collapse and regional instability should be a major concern for the U.S. and its partners as they manage the transition process. But the Afghan government — which is highly centralized under President Karzai’s executive leadership — has resisted sharing power with other actors within Afghanistan’s fragmented political landscape, forming a major driver of continued conflict. The support of a narrow and exclusive Afghan government is not an overriding U.S. interest to which we should commit indefinitely if the Afghan government is not willing to make commitments of its own, and as the largest donor for both the security services and the state, we cannot be uncritical in our support.

Exact details on plans for further reductions in U.S. force levels beyond this fall are unclear at this point, and despite affirmations of support the partnership agreement offers no specific figures for continuing military or nonmilitary aid, which is likely to be the focus of further negotiations at international conferences in Chicago and Tokyo later this summer. For Afghanistan to continue to enjoy a more limited but ongoing American backing under the strategic partnership, it must be held to the promises it has made in this agreement and in many previous international forums. A responsible U.S. political strategy that seeks to facilitate the “just and lasting peace” sought by President Obama requires linking our messages of support with a determined push for government reforms and inclusive settlement talks, in which all parties can seek a more sustainable political consensus than offered by the current system.

President Obama, speaking last night from Kabul, told an American audience that the new Strategic Partnership Agreement signed by him and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will usher in a “future in which war ends, and a new chapter begins.” The speech acknowledged the sacrifices made in the decade long war in Afghanistan which has become increasingly unpopular in recent months and taken the lives of 1,957 Americans.

Obama, speaking from Bagram Air Base, said:

My fellow Americans, we have traveled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war. Yet here, in the pre-dawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon. The Iraq War is over. The number of our troops in harm’s way has been cut in half, and more will be coming home soon. We have a clear path to fulfill our mission in Afghanistan, while delivering justice to al Qaeda.

The speech emphasized the growing responsibilities shouldered by Afghan Security Forces as 23,000 U.S. soldiers return home this summer. “Nearly half the Afghan people live in places where Afghan Security Forces are moving into the lead,” said the President.

U.S. and other foreign troops will continue to train, advise, assist and, as needed, fight alongside Afghan forces as the U.S. military shifts into a support role. “As we do, our troops will be coming home. [...] And as our coalition agreed, by the end of 2014 the Afghans will be fully responsible for the security of their country,” said Obama.

The speech, while acknowledging the ongoing role to be played by U.S. forces in Afghanistan until 2014, also touched on the domestic challenges facing the U.S. and the toll of a nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan and eight year U.S. presence in Iraq, where the last U.S. troops departed on December 18:

As we emerge from a decade of conflict abroad and economic crisis at home, it is time to renew America. An America where our children live free from fear, and have the skills to claim their dreams. A united America of grit and resilience, where sunlight glistens off soaring new towers in downtown Manhattan, and we build our future as one people, as one nation.

Watch the full speech:

The Mitt Romney campaign issued a statement welcoming Obama’s comments from Afghanistan. “I am pleased that President Obama has returned to Afghanistan. Our troops and the American people deserve to hear from our President about what is at stake in this war,” said the statement. But former Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, who has since endorsed Romney, told CNN that Obama was putting “arbitrary deadlines” on the Afghan drawdown and that Romney would have “taken a different approach” and “feels it’s important to define the mission ahead in terms of strategic outcomes, not in terms of days or months on the calendar.”

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) was refused a visa and prevented from boarding a flight in Dubai to Afghanistan on Friday, Afghan officials said. Rohrabacher has been critical of corruption in President Hamid Karzai’s government and has openly called for a more decentralized government in Afghanistan, which, according to the BBC, led Karzai to request that Rohrabacher be denied entry into the country:

Afghan officials told the BBC that in addition to his criticisms of the president, Mr Rohrabacher was being shunned because of meetings he had held in Berlin with Afghan politicians about the creation of a decentralised form of government.

According to our correspondent, Afghan officials view that as tantamount to interference in the country’s internal affairs.

“Anyone who speaks against the good of Afghanistan and tries to interfere in our internal affairs is ineligible for an Afghan visa,” one official told our correspondent.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton relayed Karzai’s message to Rohrabacher who, according to his spokesperson, obliged “out of respect.”

According to the Guardian, Rohrabacher “has been in discussion with Afghan leaders for several months about a less centralised form of government” and Afghan government officials in January criticized Rohrabacher for meeting with Afghan opposition leaders in Berlin.

According to a State Department cable released by Wikileaks, Rohrabacher as early as 2003 pushed Karzai to incorporate more warlords into his government, telling the Afghan president that he preferred “a federalist decentralization of power.” The Guardian reports that Rohrabacher “became personal friends with many of the commanders” fighting the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Last June, Iraqi government officials kicked Rohrabacher out of Iraq after the Californian Republican said Iraq should repay the United States for the war President Bush started there in 2003. While members of his own party criticized him for the remarks, Rohrabacher remained unapologetic. “There’s nothing wrong with suggesting that the people who have benefited from our benevolence should consider repaying us for what we have given them,” he said.

With the NATO summit coming up next month in Chicago largely focusing on Afghanistan, one senior diplomat in Kabul said of the newest Rohrabacher incident: “This doesn’t look great.”

The Los Angeles Times yesterday published photos from nearly two years ago of U.S. troops posing with body parts of dead insurgents in Afghanistan. Top U.S. officials immediately condemned their actions. “The behavior depicted absolutely violates our regulations and, more importantly, our core values,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said. A Pentagon spokesman called the conduct “inhuman,” while White House press secretary Jay Carney yesterday said the troops behavior was “reprehensible.”

But conservative foreign policy chieftain Charles Krauthammer has a different take. Last night on Fox News, he downplayed — but made sure not to excuse — the incident, saying it’s not as bad as people are saying because some of the dead insurgents were suicide attackers and “did not treat their own bodies with respect”:

KRAUTHAMMER: Look, let’s start by stipulating that nobody should treat the body of a dead person with disrespect. However, this is a strange case because the victims themselves, suicide attackers, are people who did not treat their own bodies with respect. They deliberately destroy their own bodies and turn themselves into body parts.

So here we have soldier soldiers in war abusing what is left of the suicide attackers. I find it slightly different from had they been abusing the body of those who died in combat or who died accidentally. It doesn’t excuse them, but I think there is a disconnect here, because suicide attackers are the most criminal of all the war criminals, abusing all the laws of war and generally speaking attacking helpless and unaware civilians.

Watch the clip:

While the soldiers actions are inexcusable, the New York Times reports today that the incident highlights concerns about the breakdown of discipline at lower levels in the chain of command, mainly due to exhaustion and the so-called “stress on the force” from 10 years of war there.